Thin Blue Lines.

He was the kind of man who stood in front of you to protect you, beside you as a friend and behind you to be there to help and support you. 

Years after I read these words, handwritten ink stained with someone else’s tears, they still stir deep within me. Because I know them to be true of the man they honored. And because I have learned in so many ways that they are true of every man and woman standing in front of, beside and behind each one of us.

I see the depth of those words in the police officer that recognized a little boy’s need for friendship in place of a father lost. In the young man that sought to do good where good was needed, reminding me that honor and commitment are not defined by age and experience alone. In my children’s laughter as firefighters hang our wreath each holiday season and who, without question or judgment, erase obstacles that seem insurmountable in the moments when they are.

In the thin lines of blue and red that stand proud in heavy uniforms when others would wilt under the weight and the heat. In the men and women that move bravely forward when others would retreat. In the brotherhood that puts their heart, souls and lives on the line every day.

In the hundreds of men and women that wake early on a Saturday morning each fall—a field filled with pride and respect for the first responder community—to honor the memory of those that we have lost, those who have been left behind, and those that continue to stand strong where others would falter.

In the remarkable women—left behind because lingering illness changed their lives, because the pressure simply became too heavy a burden to bear, because tragedy strikes unexpectedly, and because their spouses did not come home from shift—who show us that loss is universal. In the smiles and laughter that remind us that the greatest tribute we can pay our fallen first responders is not only in remembering them, but in remembering the children that are the legacies they leave behind.  

In the 100 Club and what it stands for, and the men and women it stands behind.

Since its beginnings, the 100 Club of Arizona has provided support for more than 1,300 first responders and their families. In 2011 alone, 216 families were touched by its gentle hand. But what is remarkable about this quietly powerful organization is that its mission crosses the line to support first responders and their families in both line-of-duty and non-line-of-duty deaths, for injuries catastrophic and those that are not, and in times of illness and hardship. It is a network of support, from the writing of wills and financial counseling to volunteer opportunities and events and programs dedicated to building even stronger bonds between first responder families.

Like so many others who have come before me and those yet to come, I knew of the thin blue line and the 100 Club of Arizona and the bonds of pride, duty, friendship and compassion that bind the two together. And both were there from the very first moment that I needed them to keep me from falling and to help me as I once again stood on my own.

In the years since the 100 Club of Arizona quietly knocked on my door I have learned much about the resilience of the human spirit, and the quiet strength not only of the first responders but also of the families and friends that stand with them. And of my own strength.

As I watch with pride and respect as the thin blue line stands strong for others, I know that we will never be forgotten. They are simply standing in front of, beside and behind those who need them as we needed them. And standing quietly behind the heroes that silently touch our lives every day is the 100 Club of Arizona.

And it is our responsibility—our privilege—to stand behind them.

Teeter Note: September 15 is National Tell a Police Officer "Thank You" Day. This blog was written for the current issue of the 100 Club of Arizona's newsletter. You can learn more about the 100 Club of Arizona at www.100club.org. But in my opinion, first responders deserve our thanks each and every day. 

Making a Wish.

It’s almost here. A day intended to be mine and mine alone. The close of another year of success and wisdom gained, adversity triumphed over and growth both mental and physical. The beginning of a new one fresh with opportunity. A celebration of me. Happy Birthday to me.

If an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth I would like it to hit on Saturday.

For years, I have avoided my day. I avoid it not because I am a woman and because of that I am, according to gender classification, destined to watch the hands of time with dread. I avoid it because I am a woman watching the hands of time by myself. Alone.   

When you are alone, birthdays echo with reminders of singularity. It’s not that I don’t have well-meaning family and friends that I celebrate as individual gems in the treasure chest that constitutes my life. It’s that I am missing the crown jewel that is supposed to celebrate me. It’s not that I want to be lavished with gifts and flowers and chocolates and dinners, the year of the Jimmy Choo’s aside. I don’t need elaborate bows and little blue boxes, gems and designer purses.

I simply want someone who celebrates me.

The messy-Sunday-morning-hair me. The no-makeup me. The no-bra-laundry-folding me. The get-the-kids-to-school-and-me-to-work me. The tired-and-cranky me. The can’t-swim-can’t-cook-wine-loving me. The been-to-hell-and-back-and-never-gave-up-fighting-to-come-back me. The afraid-of-scary-movies-and-dark-hallways-but-loves-to-run-in-the-dark me. The flip-flop-and-peep-toed-heels me. The Websters-Dictionary me. The protective-and-nurturing-mother-of-two me. The if-it-is-implausible-and-outrageous-it-will-happen-to-me, me. The let-me-go-for-a-run-and-I-will-give-you-whatever-you-want me. The I-am-okay-with-your-smell-if-you’re-okay-with-my-subtle-irritation-about-it me. The content-and-loving me.

All of me.

But it doesn’t appear likely that the hand-carved wish box is going to deliver what I want by Saturday, despite the fact that I am on the cusp of crossing a milestone I didn’t anticipate celebrating alone. And I have yet to meet the man that wants all of me and not just parts of me, which is not an option I am willing to exercise. But sitting here looking at the Back 40, I can’t help but wish that on this birthday that I had someone.

Someone strong enough to take a fire extinguisher to the candles.

Tending the Yard.

Dear Widowed Me,

“Community CC&Rs require that each owner shall maintain his or her lot in a manner consistent with the Community-Wide Standard. The Perfect-Families-Community homeowners association has been noted your yard as inconsistent with the CC&Rs. If you do not bring your yard into compliance within 30 days, a fine will be applied to your account.”

Sincerely, People Who Aren’t Me

I admit, my yard is … er … a little unkempt these days. And frankly, I expected this little love note from my HOA months ago.

Perhaps they thought they’d be mailing a “you-cannot-run-down-the-street-naked-and-screaming-no-matter-how-much-your-life-falls-apart” notice first. If I was in their stealthy shoes, I would have waited, too. And considering the mental picture of my unrestrained parts – and after watching the naked man on the hood of a truck on the news – I am eternally grateful that my descent into grief-induced catatonia managed to evade the point of no return.   

I live in a comfortable house on a comfortable corner lot in a sleepy neighborhood. And because I have a corner lot I am required to have more plants, trees and shrubs than the comfortable lots that are not on corners in my sleepy neighborhood. And the list of approved and acceptable vegetation is surprisingly lush and hardy.

Despite the fact that my comfortable corner lot is in the middle of the desert. And an irrigation system that hasn’t worked in a year.   

In four years, my yard has been trimmed exactly six times. The first was the week our world stopped turning. For an entire week their assignment was us, their squadmate’s family. Like silent sentinels they were there, running errands, gathering belongings, cleaning work lockers and sharing memories. And I watched them descend on the yard like an army of Edward Scissorhands.

A year later, worn down by the weight of help asked for, I fought to bring the plants I told him I did not want under control. Two days, one plane trip and severe allergic regret later, my head spun in the dark as my kids bounced on the guest room bed in excitement and my friend’s humor floated through the air in an offer of coffee.   

Another year. Conversations over hedgetrimmers and leafblowers about the neglect of my yard, both figurative and literal. Six months. A young man motivated by good and the vigor of youth led the effort to replace the leafiest offenders with new life and laughter. A business card in the doorframe before Christmas. Another business card in the doorframe.

And with each tending I see that the yard that I have been left to tend is resilient and eager to bloom, despite the drought and neglect it has endured.

Dear People Who Aren’t Me,

As a follow up to the notice I received regarding the non-compliance of my yard, this letter is to confirm that it is now in compliance and no fee should be applied to my account. I assure you that my yard will be in compliance -- just as soon as I find the right caretaker for the job.

Sincerely, Single Me

Okay. Afterall.

I watched a woman hand a flag to a man today.

Rows of blue standing silent and still in the morning sun, beads of sweat the only evidence of strain among the rank and file. The plaintive wail of the pipes disappearing into the air, tartan and flags snapped lightly. The crack of rifles thrice over. White gloved hands rising and falling in slow salute. Pain diluted and sharpened, the sound of silence washing over us in awkward waves of comfort.

And in the silence, her whisper thundered “Are you okay?” in my head as she walked me past a line of blue.

Am I? Am I okay?

In a few short months it will have been four years since she whispered to me, officer to grieving spouse, stranger to stranger, woman to woman. Four years since the rifles fired for him and my fingers welcomed the flag that was the last gift. Four years since a little boy asked why “that man was saying things about Daddy that made you cry” and a little girl screamed at the injustice of it all.

Four years of loss and renewal. Questions and answers. Resistance to change and rushing toward it. Memories not yet made, lost. Sleepless nights and comfortable slumber. Tears and laughter. Anger and adjustment. Four years after a moment that changed everything. They are the lost and found years.

A life lost and a new life found.

In four years we have processed trauma mentally and physically debilitating. We have embraced new friendships and watched others languish. We have found new passions and embraced new experiences. We’ve questioned the expected and chased the unexpected. We have challenged norms and demanded more.

The pipes still tear at my heart. The crack of rifles continues to pierce my soul. The line of blue remains uncomfortably comforting.

 

Because we’re more than okay.

Seeing Green.

My desk is stocked with green pens, the finest tip. Of all the art on my walls, it is the lush green stone cut lithograph that I prefer. When my parents eventually slide into that gentle good night, they are well aware that it is the expansive green stone cut on their wall that would ensure my fond remembrances, everlasting.

Of the features I awkwardly accept as my own, it is my eyes that I find most comfortable. Spring green in laughter. Dark forests in anger. The color of moss wet with sadness.

My birthstone is a gentle lime green, my dishes a set of pottery washed in the color of wet ferns. I am strong in the ivory skirt adorned with feathery leaves, adventurous in the tweed mini. In boarding school, I reveled in the forest green black watch kilt that swung far above the knees it was meant to reach.

One false move, and I’ll be covered in green ooze.

In 24 hours, the crystalline waters of my swimming pool have devolved into a cesspool of algae and stagnation. Koi would decline these waters, and at any moment I am expecting the Swamp Thing to emerge. And because I am “woman without able man,” it falls to me to … er … jump into the pool and find a solution to this fetid situation.

The thought of which has me feeling green and seeing red.

My home has reached a certain age where the bones are becoming brittle and the potential for hip replacements is increasingly likely. And in the past two weeks, I have seen green move from my hand to theirs as I’ve had to repair the air conditioner, the garage door and the irrigation system.

And now this. In the dead of summer. In the desert.

Which is why I am seeing green far beyond the algae-infested pool and the disappearing dollars. In the first chapter of my life, I never questioned why the house and the cars and the pool functioned without interruption. How bike tires were repaired, and sprinklers never stopped. And he never questioned why bedtimes were what they were, when bills were paid and why the work suitcase was in the hall again. Everything worked. Because we worked at it.

But since I have been left to fend for myself, the car has died, the pool is problematic, leaks linger on without stoppage and the garage full of tools has overwhelmed me with its lack of direction and purpose. Seemingly inconsequential needs have become insurmountable in frustration and, deep inside, the prideful and lonely part of me has accepted and struggled through uncharted territory, reluctant to ask for help and see inconvenience flash in eyes and mistrust in others.

While envy flashes in the green of mine.

The Devil Made Me Do It.

I expected ribbed horns curving viciously. Unfathomable inky pools rimmed in bloody red flesh, dark orbs that pierced through my soul. Fingernails like talons. A spaded tail snaking its way around unseen feet. A towering figure wrapped in deathly black robes and smoldering flames. 

I was wrong.

The devil is short and blonde. And if she makes me do one more ab-whittling set I am going bounce this Bosu off her perky ponytail.

Or I would, if I wasn’t fighting the collective urge of my abdominal musculature to seize in sweaty agony. 

Four years ago, I did not need a personal trainer. I had a husband. Who was perfectly fit and who cooked obscenely healthy meals so that we could then blissfully relax over crème de menthe drizzled bowls of ice cream and wedges of Brie. I wasn’t perfect, but I was perfectly happy with what I was. You could almost argue that it was a match made in health and fitness heaven.

(Actually, you could. We met at a gym.)

His hours of cycling and lifting bliss were matched by the miles of solitude in my running shoes, gifts of time we gave to each other that were as important and cherished as notes on the mirror and moments in the dark. As the years passed and our lives grew fuller we held sacred to those gifts and found a new gift in the miles we spent running silently side by side while two tiny heads rested on each other, lulled to sleep as wheels turned and the rhythm of our footsteps tread quietly into the night.

In the wreckage I lost my running shoes and my calm, gifts that he gave me each day and that vanished with him. Trapped in the house I craved an escape, only to struggle for air in the night in rare moments of silent fury interrupted by sirens racing by. And over time I listened as his footsteps faded and I ran to survive, and then to live.

But as my footsteps regained their stride and I once again disappeared into the dark night, something had changed.

The voice that challenged me to seek more was gone, and in its place the voice inside me wondered what more could be found. I ran into the raging silence of Dante’s inferno, seeking more and daring the fates and testing my limits and my strengths. And as I run into the dark with blind faith, this I know.

Hell hath no fury like my abs.

Daddy Dearest.

When a single mom goes out on a date with somebody new
It always winds up feeling more like a job interview
My momma used to wonder if she'd ever meet someone
Who wouldn't find out about me and then turn around and run 

– “He Didn’t Have to Be”

“Daddy would like this song.”

Looking at her in the backseat, surrounded by fluffy friends and related accoutrements necessary for a night of mommy-and-me time, I wonder if she understands the lyrics she is listening to. The woman inside me knows that she does, and I am caught between wishing she didn’t and welcoming the wisdom that is beyond her years.

In the nearly four years that I have navigated the murky waters that widowhood ignominiously landed me in, I have learned much about the annual calendar. I have learned that milestones, holidays and nondescript days all carry equal weight on the scale of pain.

In the first year each day seared, some white hot and others blue flame. Each milestone and holiday a test of endurance and resolve. But the days in between, when the air felt like a moment in time past or familiar musculature crossed my line of sight in passing, were as painful for their anger and loneliness as the unwelcomeness of the holidays that shone a spotlight on our void. As time passed, the pain dulled and each holiday simply became unwelcome. But the Hallmark-ed weeks of anticipation ensure that the ones most jarring are prolonged. And for an entire week I have been subjected to questions, conversations, dreams and dreads of paternal importance.

What he looked like. Was it burritos or nachos? The sound of his voice. His favorite color. The games he played. Did he like football or hockey best? Where we met and where we got married. Did he ever get mad, or was he always laughing?

When will we have a new Daddy?

Listening to the words of the song, she does not know that years ago we listened to the same lyrics. And in a moment of thoughtfulness, we wondered how hard it would be to enter a family that you did not start. To embrace children not yours as your own. For children to embrace a father that was not theirs as their own. And in that moment we promised that if it ever came to pass, we would honor the other by accepting no less than someone who would love us as if we had always been theirs.

And it came to pass, and Father’s Day became as much a day of remembering as it has become a day of wondering. It is equal part tears and dreams, a day of wishing for what was and what could be.

“Mom, I made a wish in the fountain but it can’t come true. So I wish you can find us another Daddy that is the perfect one for us instead.”

“Any chance you saw a frog near that fountain?”

Bye, Bye Blues.

I want to roll around on it naked. 

That’s right. Naked.

Because I am that enraptured. And because if I don’t do it now, I will have missed my window of opportunity to truly know what it feels like to own a piece of living room furniture that is not stained and soiled with the remnants of the school day, traces of popcorn and the general wear and tear of life with two children. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve earned the right to a moment of rolling around in microfiber ecstasy.

It’s been 12 years since a new couch entered our happy little home. And twelve years ago there was a husband but no kids, two mature dogs not yet joined by a third, and an entirely modern home of our own design. The cerulean blue microfiber sectional worked.  

And then life happened.

Two babies. A new dog. A career that went into light speed. A new, not-modern house. Suddenly sticky fruit chews and bowls of ice cream became habits of comfort in the comfort of the big blue couch. Little feet walked along the back and jumped from side to side. Dogs claimed their corners and wine stains left marks from the exhaustion of it all.

And then death happened.

The couch that had played a central role in the laughter and love that filled our lives became an unwelcome symbol of how much had changed. I watched as firemen I did not know sat beside my children and kept them calm as I fell apart, and as the thin blue line joined me on it. I sat on it numb and empty, holding his phone and watching from another place as my fingers dialed the numbers that would force me to say the words out loud.

And with every day and every night I grew to despise the blue couch that had been hard won and that had meant so much more.

Night after night I sat alone late in the night watching life continue on the other side of a computer screen while mine vanished into the big blue yonder. And while I struggled to breathe, the couch captured the traces of a life unhinged. Popcorn and crackers. Wrappers and Lego bricks. Princess shoes and water marks.

And wine stains from the exhaustion of it all.

I loathed it. But letting the couch go was like a marriage slowly unraveling, and I traveled the seven stages on it as I searched for what I wanted. And as my mind and body re-entered the world, I tested relationships with sectionals and sofas, chaise lounges and cozy chairs until I found it.

Solid and strong. Soft and welcoming. And the color of steel.

Just like the will of the naked woman rolling around on it.